The Impact of TRIPs Agreement Upon The Registration System in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has changed a number of laws and regulations in order to become compliant with the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) (Ramady, 2010).

The focus of this paper is how Saudi Arabia went from having a loose set of patent laws since 1989 to a system that has reached internatinoal standards with a few remaining improvements to be made.

The paper wil analyse Saudi Arabia's TRIPS compliance in three parts:

1. Before legal changes for TRIPS compliance ensued, Saudi Arabia did have a patent registration mechanism but it was outdated and highly inefficient (IBP USA, 2009).

2. Saudi Arabia had to become TRIPS compliant since it was a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) (Ramady, 2010).

3. Changes to existing laws and introduction of new laws, with specific emphasis on patent legal framework, has made Saudi Arabia TRIPS compliant to a large degree with only minor changes needed to improve the framework.

Part I. Saudi Arabia Pre-TRIPS Patent Law System

Saudi Arabia started off with a loose set of intellectual and copyright laws before it became TRIPS compliant. These laws together were better known as the Basic Law.

- Will provide details on the Basic Law (1992) and how it was insufficient in dealing with patent registration.

- Will explain the pre-TRIPS system's major shortcomings:

o Will explore the first patent law (1989) and its working.

o Will explore why Saudi Arabia's pre-TRIPS laws led to a backlog of over 9,000 patents and why only 40 patents could be registered up to the early 2000's (IBP USA, 2009).

- Explore Saudi Arabia's need to become TRIPS compliant, with special emphasis on pharmaceutical patent infringement under pre-TRIPS Saudi patent laws.

Part II. Saudi Arabia's move to TRIPS under the WTO Regime

Saudi Arabia had to introduce domestic legislative changes according to Article 22.2 of the TRIPS Agreement so as not to violate the Article 10 of the Paris Convention (Williamson, 2012).

- Will provide details on how various laws begun to evolve in this period by focusing on specific laws.

- Will explore why it was challenging for the Saudi pharmaceutical industry and some sectors of the trading community to accept the TRIPS compliant laws.

- Provide details on how local businesses were convinced to adapt to the new TRIPS compliant laws.

Part III. TRIPS Compliance of Domestic Saudi Patent Laws

Saudi Arabia has become largely TRIPS compliant, leaving room for minor adjustments to be made, putting it on equal footing with international standards. However, there are certain challenges in traded products as well as audio and visual products.

- Will explore how pirated products make their way to the Saudi markets leading to patent infringement;

- Will provide details on how audio and visual products are manufactured in Saudi Arabia leading to patent infringement;

- Will detail how Customs is being empowered in Saudi Arabia to process traded goods for patent infringement (IIPA, 2004).

Conclusion and Synthesis

Saudi Arabia has introduced domestic legislative changes according to Article 22.2 of the TRIPS Agreement so as not to violate the Article 10 of the Paris Convention(Williamson, 2012).

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is also looking to join the Patent Law Treaty as well as the Patent Cooperation Treaty in order to bolster the current standing of patent related laws (The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 2011).

Furthermore, the movement of counterfeit goods, especially through Customs, has been stemmed by providing Customs with the powers to withhold and test goods for patents (Jomoa, 2012).